The first significant development in human locomotion from primitive modes of transportation, such as horses and camels, was the wheeled vehicle. The wheeled vehicle was one of the great inventions of all time because of the contribution that the wheel, and its utilization in a vehicle, makes to applying supplemental sources of power to human mobility. Horses and camels can travel faster than the humans riding on their backs, but to transport more than one person with a single animal, something most horses had the strength to do, a vehicle was needed. It is believed that the first conveyance of this sort was a plank or log dragged along the ground. Its mechanical inefficiency must have prompted the search for improvements. The invention of the wheel made the contribution of a horse more productive. The power provided by any one horse has varied little over time, but the effective product of that horsepower has grown with changes in vehicles, in harnessing, and in the surface on which it operates.
Since the rise of the automobile, the wheel, a circular frame that is solid, partly solid, or spoked, and that is capable of turning on an axle, has remained essentially unchanged, with the exception of wheel material advancements and the development of the tire, the ring-shaped vehicle component that covers the wheel's rim to protect it and enable better vehicle performance. With the exception of the tire, known wheels are inherently non-compliant. To reduce the effect of travelling over rough ground, leading to improved ride quality and vehicle handling, modern vehicles incorporate a system of springs, shock absorbers, and linkages that connect a vehicle to its wheels and allows relative motion between the two. Notwithstanding exemplary innovations in vehicle suspensions, wheels and tires are still often damaged from running over potholes and other obstacles. Moreover, vehicle suspensions are difficult to construct and expensive to maintain and replace. Given these and other deficiencies in the art, the need for certain new and useful improvements in the wheel is evident.